Watercooling Setup Help

Hey guys, im looking to buy a Thermaltake Kandolf LCS Case iv just been planning how the water cooling will work, and iv come up with this, will this work with my built-in water cooled case?
theses are the specs from the Thermaltake website

300lph is pretty good, you should have no problems with that. My pump is only 150lph and does a good enough job, mind you, i havent finished "adapting" it yet so it isnt in my system at the mo. During testing it kept my cpu to a nice 34 to 38 c.

Im in the process of designing and building my own resevoir at the mo.

that website showed my first setup idea but i don't think it would be too efficient, as it has to cool, a x1900 xtx crossfire kit, which gets really hot, plus it never took into account the northbridge, so overall i don't think it would be that efficient.

You are asking your radiator and pump to do an awful lot of work with all those heat sources you have. The first picture I "reworked" gives peference to your CPU. You overall temps are still going to be high (for a water system) because the flow is only 300 LPH (roughly 80 GPH) and you'll have at least 300 watts of power being absorbed by the cooling system. That pump is rated at 300LPH without any back pressure. With all the waterblocks (backpressure) you'll have attached to it, you will not get much coolant flow through your system unless the pump has a bunch more head pressure than I give it credit for. Overall the system will be a little cooler and much quieter than an air cooled system.

The second picture doubles your head pressure without major modifications. Overall your temps will be much lower and the system much quieter than an air cooled system.

The third picture is for extreme overclocking and doesn't use any Thermaltake waterblocks or radiators. It will keep all the water cooled items at very close to ambient temperature and will not be cost effective on a heat degree drop per dollar spent basis.

A T line is usually a tube with a removable plug that is routed off of a "T" fitting to the lower end of the case so you can easily drain cooling fluid out of the cooling system.

You overall temps are still going to be high (for a water system) because the flow is only 300 LPH (roughly 80 GPH) and you'll have at least 300 watts of power being absorbed by the cooling system. That pump is rated at 300LPH without any back pressure.

The third option is not one ill be going for, as ill have to mod my case and its gonna cost alot.
The second option is more feasible for me, what if i just buy one powerful pump and use that instead of my Thermaltake one?

Or i could just use the water cooling to cool both my GPU's and Northbridge, and put a decent HSF on the CPU?

Oops sorry about the 300LPH. I somehow absorbed that number through the nether. Two pumps would be a good idea if you really want to lower the temps for your system and overclock. It you're not going to overclock then you don't need an additional pump. While overclocking it is very important to move a bunch of water through the system and two pumps will allow you to increase the head pressure and move more water.

If you just wanted to quiet your pair of X1900XTX with the cooling system, I could understand that. I've had a single X1900XTX and it was a little screamer at times.

I'd play with what you have and see what configuration you prefer. If you can get the processor and the two video cards in the loop with good temps, then I'd just forgo the northbridge block and do that.

so my 500 LPH pump still wont be good enough for my original setup idea?
yeah the graphics cards are noisy, the main reason i wanted liquid cooling, i don't mind cooling the processor with a decent HSF.

the case is gonna be around £170 + delivery
its the best rated water cooled case i could find with a decent budget, plus it looks cool lol

what temps should i be hoping to get for the GPU's and CPU via water cooling?

right now the X1900 XTX stock cooled, idles at 60*C and maxes out at 100*C, not been higher, but still, i don't like that number

My current AMD Athlon X2 4200+ stock cooled, idles at 50*C and when i was running 3D Marks today i saw it hit 75*C so anything lower than that for the Core 2 Duo, and ill be happy.

btw guys this is linked to my other forum post located here.
have a read to understand what I'm planning and get the full picture
any suggestions and comments welcome

so my 500 LPH pump still wont be good enough for my original setup idea?
yeah the graphics cards are noisy, the main reason i wanted liquid cooling, i don't mind cooling the processor with a decent HSF.

the case is gonna be around £170 + delivery
its the best rated water cooled case i could find with a decent budget, plus it looks cool lol

what temps should i be hoping to get for the GPU's and CPU via water cooling?

right now the X1900 XTX stock cooled, idles at 60*C and maxes out at 100*C, not been higher, but still, i don't like that number

My current AMD Athlon X2 4200+ stock cooled, idles at 50*C and when i was running 3D Marks today i saw it hit 75*C so anything lower than that for the Core 2 Duo, and ill be happy.

btw guys this is linked to my other forum post located here.
have a read to understand what I'm planning and get the full picture
any suggestions and comments welcome

thanks again Cinders for helping me out

Click to expand...

I'd like to see upper 20's to lower 30's at idle and upper 30's to mid 40's full on for the CPU. The video cards should run idle in the mid 30's to lower 40's and full on around the upper 50's to mid 60's or so.

You should test the pump with your various water blocks. I'd think it would be enough for just the video blocks alone. At least you'd get rid of that turbine whine and have much cooler video cards too.

I have a pump that outputs roughtly 800 LPH and it will just cool my CPU. I plan to overclock my FX-60 and I expect to see lower 20's at idle and mid 30' at full on.

You'd have to test the pump with your computer running and waterblocks in place to really know if it could handle the job. (In other words, I'm not sure, or I don't know.) If you do buy an aftermarket pump make sure that the intake and outlet ports are the same size as the tubing in your cooling system. Mismatched sizes can be a pain in the tush. The usual sizes are 6mm, 9mm and 12mm or 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2".

The specs on the D5 are listed at 24 volts. Unless you purchase a 24 volt power source or mod your PSU (not hard really) your D5 (if you choose that aftermarket pump) will run at 12 volts. Running the pump at 12 volts will drastically change its specs.

I'm going to guess and say you'd only need to prep the second card for crossfire if you where going to add a third video card. The Crossfire prep seems to be a couple of threaded holes on top of the block for two nipples?

i agree, the crossfire prep only seems to have a different bolt on the top of the block.

i have no idea what difference it makes, i was hoping someone could help me.

anyways the blocks had a lot off oxidisation on the button, so i used a 12 micron wet and dry paper to get it off, and got it as smooth as possible, was this the right thing to do?
my dad says i did it all wrong, baring in mind he has no experience of water cooling or anything related. he said the block was milled perfectly flat, and me using wet and dry paper on it would leave an un-even surface, is this true? it looks flat, i wet and dry'd it, in a full fluid sweep motion.

The picture I drew is a top view of your crossfire waterblock setup. You'll probably need to supply an extra set of nipples for the crossfire prepared waterblock so you can attach the waterblock for the second card to it. I draw better picture now.

but how will i make my non-crossfire prep block, into a crossfire prep block.
from what i can tell, the crossfire block is drilled all the way through, through the top acrylic, hence the need for the sealed bolt on the top.
if i do that, surely it will leak?

both my blocks have the plugs facing in the same direction, so I'm sure i can still make them work by just using a extra bit of tubing to connect the two, obviously it wont be as neat as this set-up, but i dont mind?